These kind of things probably happens when they have printed to many copies of a book. For ebooks you will not see these extremely low prices since they do not have a stock they want to get rid off.

Since ebooks are disposables anyway why just not by the hardcover in this case, read it and throw it away.

This is another perfect argument for ebooks. Nobody is making a profit on that book at $2.23, in fact I suspect it cost that much just to print, bind, etc and is probably being sold at a loss.

If it was an ebook it might also not have sold well, but no one would have had to discount it to ridiculous prices just to get rid of it. That makes it obvious that the book was a bomb.

Ebooks are not disposable to me. It's part of why I love them so much. My library was slowly taking over the house and now it can all be held on a tiny card. As I replace my pbooks with ebooks I then donate the original book to the library. I plan on keeping all my ebooks forever. Or at least until I'm cold in the ground.